There have been some great skates of late for the SPSC.
The Sherwood Park Skating Club has had a solid season to this point, getting two of its skaters through to the nationals and one all the way onto Team Canada for the upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea.
“It’s been a really good season so far,” said SPSC head coach Terri Gallant. “We have a great group of kids right now who have all trained really hard for all the competitions leading up to sectionals and we had a great showing there, as evidenced by all the different teams are skaters qualified for. It’s been going really well.”
The chain of competition leading up to the recent national championships in Vancouver began with the Sherwood skaters winning three medals at the Alberta Sectional Championships, with Alexandra Sarmiento-Diaz finishing first amongst pre-Novice ladies, Aislinn Ganci winning silver in Senior ladies, followed by Jordan Topolnyski coming in third at the same age level.
All three qualified through to the Skate Canada Challenge competition, as did Danielle Lisowski, who was fifth in the pre-Novice event.
Ganci had the best showing at the Challenge, coming in seventh, with Topolnyski 19th, Diaz 29th and Lisowski 34th in their respective divisions.
As a result, Ganci moved on to the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, where she was joined by Keegan Messing, an Alaska native with dual citizenship who uses the SPSC as his Canadian base and had a bye into the recent Olympic Trials in Vancouver.
Ganci looked impressive to start the event, as the Park product was eighth after the short program. Unfortunately, her long program wasn’t as sharp and she would end up in 16th place overall.
“It was her sixth time to nationals, but her first year as a senior, so you are never sure what to expect when you move up to a new level,” Gallant said. “She kept getting better as the fall progressed and was second at sectionals and had a great showing at the Challenge, coming seventh. It was very exciting being part of an Olympic trials year, even though that wasn’t in the cards for her. Just to be in there was very exciting. She had great practices there. Her short was really good, a personal best for points. But the long program, she got just a little overwhelmed being in that second group and almost in the top group. She said she just made one mistake and that kind of set her off and she got a little flustered and made a couple more. She certainly could have done better, as she is a long program skater. It was unfortunate. But he confidence really grew at nationals overall. Her component mark was higher than she has had before. She did a lot of work on he performance and relating to the audience, and she very much improved in that area. She has really improved and has landed all the triple jumps and now has a triple-triple combination. It has been a slow progress, but she is always improving and it will be exciting to see how far she can go. To be eighth after the short was very exciting for her.”
The 18-year-old’s best ever showing at nationals was a sixth place result when she was in Novice.
Meanwhile, Messing won the silver medal in the Senior men’s event and will represent Canada in the Olympics (see separate story).
Elsewhere, the SPSC has qualified three of its skaters to the provincial junior development team due to their showing at the Sectionals.
Making that Alberta squad were Emerson Hill (fifth pre-Juvenile ladies), Kate Fairey (fourth Juvenile ladies U-12) and Emma Grace Fairey (ninth pre-Novice ladies).
They have also qualified six of their skaters through to this year’s edition of the Alberta Winter Games — Emma Grace Fairey, Haley Gillett, Sophie Do, Mikala Cutler, Danelle Sheppard and Carys Prodaniuk.
Overall, Gallant said that all indicators are good for her club at the moment.
“Our numbers are even a bit higher this year, with the most in our junior program,” she said. “We have the most kids we have ever had in that program. We have an introductory level called the junior prep program which is bursting at the seams right now. I don’t know if the popularity of the sport is higher or if it is just the growth of Sherwood Park, but our club has always done very well provincially and we are well known for the programs we offer and our coaching.”
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